Plastic Paddies - this time it's credit cards

The Sweeper

Has Ireland gone spending-nuts?

Was in Ireland last week for a few days, and picked up the Evening Herald last Friday. The headline stated something along the lines of Ireland has the highest per capita personal debt in Europe, and cited a combined number in the obscene billions.

I don't think they were counting mortgages.

When I was wandering about Dublin, I near couldn't move on Grafton street for people shopping. Everyone I saw was bulging with bags. There were no sales of particular note going on. There's no way the averge Joe or Jane Bloggs on that street was earning enough to be blowing €1,500 on shoes, a scarf and a handbag in Brown Thomas, yet there they were, sporting the goods and a little smile.

Is money in Ireland really that easy-come, easy-go? Or is everyone hocked up to their eyeballs on plastic?

Did anybody else see last Friday's Herald, and can you remember the figure they quoted?

I'm going to stick a poll on this as well - how much personal debt are you in, not including your mortgage? (Nosey, eh?)

Terry

yep. several of my friends are up to their eyes in plastic debt because of their spending. people are just buying pointless things too. one of my friends used his credit card to buy a pen from the iron maiden website. i kid you not.

tbh

<smug> I have no personal debt whatsoever - credit card or loans</smug>

I came into a bit of money recently and paid off all my debts, feels great. I have a mortgage, but bought 5 years ago, so my house is now worth 2.5 times the value of the mortgage - which is nice.

The reason I think we are in so much debt is because

a: it's a much more consumer-driven society now than it was 10/20 years ago. People would not buy ostentatious things because they would be afraid of what the neighbours would think - "they'll think we are showing off". Now they don't care. They want to be like the people they see in OK and HELLO and MTV Cribs and all that ****e, and they are not prepared to save for the things they want, they want them NOW!

b: Banks are giving money out a lot easier these days, because of the economic climate: a bank is someone who lends you an umbrella when it's sunny, then asks for it back when it starts to rain.

uncomfortable times ahead.

Sleepy

Huge amounts of Irish people are living on credit cards. Personally, I'm only in the position to live on what I earn while reducing my debts for the last few months or so.

My own debts would be down to a combination of post grad fees, a car crash I had in my late teens, the high cost of living in Ireland, the low graduate wages that were on offer when I joined the workforce, taking a few holidays I couldn't afford to keep my sanity, buying a car and the fact I'm bloody useless about managing my money.

Ruu_Old

No personal debt here. I do know people who max out a credit card, get another credit card and use cash from that to pay off the other one. They also have taken out a loan to pay off a credit card but instead of using putting any extra money from paying the credit card, they "reward" themselves by spending the rest on clothes.:) Banks give out credit cards far too easily and people get drawn in.

tbh

I went shopping with a mate for a HD TV. He spent 2,000. I asked him did he get a bonus, or a loan, or did he save....he said he was getting it because the limit on his card was increased! :eek:

Bluetonic

tbh wrote:

<smug> I have no personal debt whatsoever - credit card or loans</smug>

tbh wrote:

I have a mortgage

Indeed.

Chinafoot

Have a €3,000 student loan that I've just started paying back.
I'll admit that I got it for a holiday. We were meant to go to a wedding in Australia but that went a bit pear-shaped so we went to Cuba instead.

I couldn't bring myself to get a credit card. I have no will power when it comes to money and I'd be lethal with plastic.

tbh

Minesajackdaniels wrote:

how much personal debt are you in, not including your mortgage? (Nosey, eh?)

indeed squared.

ferdi

all these people driving blingin' new cars bought on the nevernever with their fancy clothes, holidays and household goods will get whats coming to them when this economy goes balls up....and it will happen.

Beruthiel

I never understood people who put themselves in the red.
I do have a visa card, but I only use it if I know I can cover it when the bill comes.
Other than that, mortgage and normal house hold bills.
I can't afford to be in debt

seamus

I have just over a grand on my credit card, and a car loan. I tend to resist the urge to impluse buy, particularly on my credit card. If I see something I want and I'm not in a rush, I'll get some cash out. Otherwise I'll use the credit card and pay it off the next time I'm on the internet.

The amount on my credit card is from having to pay my car insurance, tax and go to a wedding all in a period of two weeks.

jester77

I'm one of the lucky ones to be debt free with a nice bit in the bank thanks to the SSIA! I think the SSIA sorted me out and sort of got me to cop onto my spending habits a few years back which was good! I know lots of people who max out their credit card, then get another one to pay that off... now they have both maxed out :eek: But the banks are partly to blame, they just throw credit at you... I have a 10k credit limit on my credit card that I never asked for. Why would anyone want such a ridiculous limit? At least I have some sense but I know plenty that see that as a target.

The Sweeper

Yeah I've been wondering if the SSIA releases have sorted out a lot of people's personal debt. I spend a LOT of time in debt in my early to mid twenties, and a LOT of time in my late twenties getting out of it. These days, I have a credit card that I use for business spending because it makes it easier to sort out my tax - depending what I'm doing for work I can put a thousand pounds through that card but it all gets paid off before a penny of interest accrues.

Myself and himself are looking at being completely debt free by the end of September - okay so we don't own property, but it'll be the first time in about ten years we're debt free.

Kolodny

Currently in debt to the tune of just under €1000, between a bank loan and my recently acquired credit card. I'll be reducing that by half next pay day so it's not looking too bad. I avoided getting a credit card for a long time as I didn't trust myself not to get into trouble, but I've managed to be pretty sensible with it so far.

biko

Paying back a massive student loan. No other debts.

layke

Got my car loan down to €3200, I really want to pay it off but it's just not possible. Car costs (and insurance) really do hit my wallet, I can't remember a month end when I wasn't out of money then into next month to pay the usual €300 overdraft. However i'm slowly slowly getting out of debt.

As a young person I found it very hard and was always out of money (car + insurance). Now that i've just hit the 25 mark, my pay has increased a lot and my insurtance has come down.

Saving, is just something most Irish people find vvery hard to do. We are a race that live on loans.

djmarkus

shouldnt this be in finance?

Naked Lepper

7000 car
3000 mbna

21yrs old

so my rent is 600 per months insurance is 200, car repayment is 180 and mbna min payment is 50 (but balance isnt going down)

thats 980 euros gone before i even get to bills, petrol, food, beer etc

fairly pox!

connundrum

Naked Lepper wrote:

7000 car
3000 mbna

21yrs old

so my rent is 600 per months insurance is 200, car repayment is 180 and mbna min payment is 50 (but balance isnt going down)

thats 980 euros gone before i even get to bills, petrol, food, beer etc

fairly pox!

Holy crap, that's nearly my situation exactly except I'm 22 and my rent is €350pm. Spooky :eek:

About a year ago I was just out of college and honestly couldn't see daylight from the amount of debt I was in (relative to my income that is). Thank God the situation is looking ok now, although this 5 week month is going to kill

Terry

tbh wrote:

<smug> I have no personal debt whatsoever - credit card or loans</smug>

if we're gonna be smug about things, i own a house worth about €275,000 and it only cost me €10,000.
in your face property market and netwhizzkid.
still about €4,000 in the hole with no job and no chance of getting one either.

i am considerably richer than yewww.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

tbh

julep wrote:

if we're gonna be smug about things, i own a house worth about €275,000 and it only cost me €10,000.
in your face property market and netwhizzkid.
still about €4,000 in the hole with no job and no chance of getting one either.

i am considerably richer than yewww.

do you mind me asking why? (no chance of getting one either) just being nosey like.

brown*eyed*girl

Doing quite well for myself at the moment but it hasn’t always been this way. In my early twenties and my worst I had two credit union loans, two bank loans, an overdraft that was always at its limit and was renting. I even had catalogue bills to pay too which would mean getting the stuff in advance but items being much dearer than if I bought them in a regular shop. Looking back thought I’d never get out of that trap but with a lot of hard work, budgeting, saving, and some luck I got out of that vicious cycle of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. I’m actually the one in the family that gets asked for loans till payday. Now that is a thing I thought I’d never see. Other thing that got me back on track was a remortgage and cashing in a policy. At the moment my mortgage is around €80,000 less than the value of my house but it doesn’t matter much to me as I’ll never move even if I won the lotto. I actually have savings for the first time in my life which is around €2,000+, I have no overdraft, car loans or credit cards. The only loan I have is my credit union loan which is €9,000 but I have around €3,000 in my savings. This was the only loan I didn’t pay off and I topped it up recently to get a new bathroom. Aim is to get it down to the €5,000 and try not to borrow above that but its easier said than done as something always comes up. Hope that cheers up the younger ones in their early 20’s because I was really bad (even hiding behind the sofa from the catalogue man!) and slowly but surely you can get back on track.

ScumLord

I don't know if you can believe all you read in the papers about this kind of thing, the English news was saying the Brits where the worst in Europe by a long shot a few months ago. Then you had that richest nation in the world which turned out to have omited a few facts. That's the thing about these "reports" they can make them say whatever they want.

I've never been in debt, I hate borrowing money. It's not that I'm good with money or anything I'm terrible I've just got used to scraping by during the week. I don't get any pleasure out of shopping either.

greenkittie

im 20...

9000 student loans
1000 overdraft

22000 salary

i rarely even buy anything aside from food and alcohol i like the partying but sometimes i wish i could just have even a little less debt.

Terry

tbh wrote:

do you mind me asking why? (no chance of getting one either) just being nosey like.

agorophobia. simple as that.

Tobias Greeshman

Hmm let me see...

€3,700 for a Car Loan
€1,000 in personal loans

I get paid monthly and find I'm only barely making it through each month till the next payday. One large bill and I'll have to scrape by for rest of the month :mad:

My salary is a joke, so much so that I can barely save anything each month, and can only afford about 1 good session with gf or mates each month.

DonkeyStyle \o/

No debts, but then I don't have a car or any other major outgoings... er yet.

SingingCherry

I have never been in debt in my life and I don't ever intend to start. I don't think there is anything wrong with credit cards as long as you pay off the full balance every month. We don't owe a cent to a soul. And we have a considerable nest egg for a future purchase (not to mention the SSIA coming in soon enough)

All that said... we don't own a house and while I would love to have that, we're worried about the housing market going kablewwy and owing more on our morgage than the house is worth.

robinph

I just have between €500 and €1500 on the plastic usually that then mostly gets paied off each month if I can be bothered. But as I have no mortgage and plenty of notes stashed away in various places my net worth is safely in the black for now.

deisemum

Apart from a small mortgage which will be paid off in the very near future I've no other debts. We bought our house in July '97 before prices soared and it's now worth at least 6 times what we paid for it, maybe more.

Have been saving the childrens allowance for the last 3 years to pay for 3rd level education or whatever expense they'll hit us when they leave school. I use credit card for most purchases and pay it back every month. We've 2 SSIAs maturing in the near future.

I reckon once SSIA money is spent this country is going to have a major down turn and a lot of people are going to be in trouble.

I know what it's like to have big money worries. We bought our home in London when prices were at their peak and then plummeted shortly afterwards, wages dropped if you were lucky to have a job. I had to work 2 jobs, hubby 3 jobs just to survive and fortunately we had some savings that took it big dip. We sold our place in London 10 years after buying it and got less than what we bought it for. Typical, 6 months after selling it the prices shot up. At least we got a bit of money back on the endowment.

I would hate to be starting out trying to get on the property ladder. I would like to be able to have something put by to be able to give something to my 2 boys when they start looking for a home. I have no intention of letting them assume they'll get it but just surprise them with it so they won't just take it for granted.

Having said that no matter what stage in life you're at there are always expenses, ie young people with student loans, social life etc, others just getting on the property ladder, when you have a baby - expensive business especially with childcare costs, nothing like older children to help spend your money as it gets more expensive as they get older

Stephen

I owe just under 10k on my car, and about 500 on the credit card, but i pay that off in full every month by direct debit. I refuse to be shafted by those bastards. I've no mortgage or other major expenses yet so my quite crappy salary isn't a big issue yet. I also have some SSIA money in the bank. I don't plan on dipping into it any time soon, i'm going to keep adding to it while the going is good.

Tha Gopher

Aint an ounce of debt, 3 grand in the bank and tis all mine i tell thee.

I work in the financial sector, the amount of people who have 100-200 odd in their account is shocking. And yet they insist on using their cards etc to buy CRAP on a daily basis.

Blisterman

No debt, and I'm owed about €500 in taxes, which I'm going to collect tomorrow.

Guy:Incognito

julep wrote:

yep. several of my friends are up to their eyes in plastic debt because of their spending. people are just buying pointless things too. one of my friends used his credit card to buy a pen from the iron maiden website. i kid you not.

In fairness, sending cash online, even with broadband, tends to pose a problem.:)


Was it a nice pen?

Ruu_Old

Good to see only a handful of people more than €20,000.

Terry

no. it was a crappy chep looking thing that cost €2 to buy and €1.90 for the transaction fee.

here: http://www.eddiesmegastore.com/images/maidenmugs/pens_large.jpg

Black Swan

I live very modestly and save, save, save and then invest in equities. Sure, I have credit cards, but I try to pay them off monthly and not get stuck in the credit card interest trap. Often use a debit card that immediately deducts my purchase from my checking account. I hate debt!

xebec

SingingCherry wrote:

I have never been in debt in my life and I don't ever intend to start.

I don't see the problem with debt, as long as it is controlled. It will be a very rare situation that you always have the money you need when you need it and often the best way to get out of this situation is some short-term debt.

Personally, no debts at the moment, took out €2k loan at start of summer for travel and moving expenses, paid it back in a lump sum a few days ago. Nothing on CC at the mo, usually c.€500 on average passing through it each month, have never missed a payment or paid any interest on it. Purchases only go on CC if I already have or will have the cash v. soon.

What people fail to realise is that the facilities should be used in moderation and unfortunately we end up hearing some of the stories that have been mentioned here

Kintarō Hattori

No mortage yet, though between myself and herself we pay €900 a month for rent. Just recently got a credit card, but being fairly sensible with it. We're saving, saving, saving. We don't go out much, or drink, and the Cineworld Unlimited Card is a godsend as we live 3 minutes from the cinema!

Degsy

I have a bank loan for ten grand which is what i had to pay my ex to get her name off the deeds of the house when we split up.Apart from that zilcho..i wouldnt have a credit card because i'd max the thing out in ten minutes buying crap on ebay.

Tha Gopher

Stekelly wrote:

In fairness, sending cash online, even with broadband, tends to pose a problem.:)

Exactly. I think these people only notice theyre spending when they hand a note to someone in a shop. If they buy something by clicking their mouse or handing a card to someone in a shop they feel like itsw technically not cash theyre spending.

skywalker

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

No debts, but then I don't have a car or any other major outgoings... er yet.

Ditto. Biggest thing Ive had to pay for recently was 5k to do a masters. I saved that before I started. Dont like debt fot debts sake at all.

zilog_jones

I'm a stinky student with 4 grand in the bank thanks to 7 months of co-op (the most money I've had EVAR), no credit card, no mortgage/rent/bills to pay, and debts (actually, people owe me!). Do I win?

Things are all gonna go downhill from here though, as I'm planning on getting a car

muppetkiller

5000 in debt but just a cash flow issue at the moment after 5 weddings (one my sisters and one in London) ,Galway Races and a Stag in berlin in the last month. prayin for payday on the 20th !!!!!!

Nightwish

I owe 4000 in college loans and 500 on my credit card, but I clear that every month.

gline

up until this morning i was in about 15k debt
credit union loan, aib loan, 2x hfc loans, credit card, overdraft and i owed my mam a few grand aswell. I was paying out 1200 a month on just bills and loan repayments, sometimes 2000 a month. but fortunatly I came into a bit of money and this morning i paid off 10,000 of the loans and I will clear all of it tomorrow.

And to stop myself getting into that type of debt i am gonna save LOADS and invest money and also i am dropping my credit card limit to under 1000 and get rid of the overdraft.

It will be weird not being in debt, i have been for the past 6 years roughly. But in saying that i have NEVER missed a payment for anything at all, not once

My advice to young people is, avoid debt and save, easier said then done but it will wreck your head for years. Takes a few hours to get into major debt and years to get out of it. Also it always amazes me the fact that the more you get into debt the more banks and institutions offer you. I used to get letters in the door offering me gold cards and phone calls offering more loans, ridiculuous. But to be honest you cant blame the banks, if you cant control how you spend your money its your fault not theirs

Kintarō Hattori

gline wrote:

up until this morning i was in about 15k debt

Stop buying all that computer gear.

ircoha

Degsy wrote:

.... buying crap on ebay.

Where?:)

gline

eo980 wrote:

Stop buying all that computer gear.

funny enough not €1 of it was for computer stuff, mostly cars and bikes